Reading 1001 discussion

5 stars

My first 5 star rating for a book with only loathsome characters!

I have never before rated a book 5 stars if I didn't love at least one character. I loathed all of the leading characters. I found little to be redeeming in any of them. Despite this, Emily Bronte made me have sympathy for all of them and hope for each of them to have a more desirable outcome. Her writing style was exquisite. And I loved the descriptions of the moors, the mansions, the people. I loved the story within a story style of telling the tales involved. I loved that when Heathcliff was missing the question of his whereabouts and doings remained untold. I loved that Nellie told the story from her viewpoint which meant there were emotions, thoughts and actions that we couldn't understand.

The book is an intricate exposure of what happens to people when they live for revenge. Emily took Heathcliff down a very twisted path and allowed him to be very unlikable.
She allowed him to seethe in his own jealousy, anger and grief. She allowed him to be repulsive. And I am so glad that she did!

Some of the other reviewers disliked Emma Messenger's narration. I didn't have a problem with it. This is my first reading of the book, and know very little about the appropriate accents, so I believe that I do not have the knowledge some others may have. But I enjoyed her choices for the voices of the main characters and especially liked the sinister quality she gave to Heathcliff.

Reread this book roughly 40 years after reading it for school.

I love the wildness of Emily Brontë’s imagination in creating a story that builds on the Gothic in such an original and memorable way. Heathcliff is one of the most divisive characters in literature, maybe he is a devil, maybe a sullen and abused man driven mad by grief and loss, but he is unforgettable.

The book undermines the usual tropes that we see in the Victorian novel - Cathy’s religion with its pagan undertones is contrasted with the sullen and mean minded cant of Joseph, and the wildness of the moors is a long way from the ballrooms and genteel society of the London middle classes. I enjoyed the dual narration of Nelly and Lockwood, and the way the narrative shifted through time.

Best. Book. Ever.

Pre-2017 review:

***1/2

This novel came as a surprise to me. I (wrongly) expected something similar to Jane Austen; instead, this was much darker and I was treated to an exploration of passion and isolation pushed to its extremes, with characters eerily close to some of the "deranged" characters we often encounter in Russian novels of the same period. Heathcliff emerges as an iconic, but divisive character who leaves me ambivalent. It is such a wonder that a novel of such quality was written from somebody of Emily Brontë's background and similarly isolated origins.